Tasks
A task is the unit of work. It belongs to a project, can sit on a feature, and is the anchor for comments, time, files, and AI actions.
A ticket is also a task (type: ticket) plus support details. Everything on this page applies. Differences are on Support desk.
Create a task
Section titled “Create a task”Open a project. From the board, table, or the composer, add a task. The drawer opens: title, description, assignees, status, priority, label, due date, feature, recurrence, and more.
Suggest with AI (every plan) can pre-fill the form from project context. You still press create.
Under the description, Distill (in the task ⋮ menu) folds later comments into one current brief — the requirements as they stand now, not a recap of who said what. The hive keeps that brief so the next person does not spend tokens again. If the description or comments change, distill again from the same menu. It does not overwrite the written description. Distill needs a couple of sentences of description or comments combined — less than that, it does not call the model. Distill is hidden while you edit the title or description. See Assistant.
Each task gets a permanent number on that project. You see it on the board, the table, and at the top of the drawer.
Move to another project (⋮ menu) picks an unarchived project you can open. Subtasks go with a parent; moving a subtask on its own unlinks it. The task gets a new number on the destination. Status stays if that project has the same column, otherwise it lands on the matching category (or the first unstarted). Features come off — they belong to the old project. People who are not on the destination drop off the assignee list. Comments, files, and unbilled time stay with the task; time already on an invoice stays on the old project.
Started from (on the right of the drawer) is where this task came from: a chat, a meeting, a comment, a feature, or a decision. Closed, it already shows that starting point. Open it to walk the trail, jump to the exact words, or pick a decision.
Acceptance criteria sit under the description when you edit: what done looks like, stated so it can be checked. Agents read them through Agents — the clearer they are, the less an agent has to guess.
A task can belong to several features at once — “Add SSO” can serve both Security and the Acme deal. Pick as many as apply in the drawer; the task shows up under each, and finishing it moves both forward.
Who can edit
Section titled “Who can edit”| Action | Who |
|---|---|
| Create | Anyone with project access |
| Edit | Manager, or the creator, or an assignee |
| Move to another project | Same as edit, and you must be able to open the destination |
| Delete | Manager only |
Unassigned tasks fall to managers (and the creator). If Save or the status control is disabled, you are not on that list.
Status
Section titled “Status”Statuses are a catalog, not a fixed list of “todo / doing / done.”
- The hive default lives in Organization settings.
- A project can inherit that catalog, or override it entirely (not a merge) in project settings.
Every status has a category. Filters, progress, recurrence, and automations key off the category, so renaming “Done” to “Shipped” does not break the product.
You always keep at least one unstarted and one completed status. Completed statuses stay last in the catalog (and on the board) — they cannot be dragged into the open workflow or deleted while they are the only Done.
| Category | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unstarted | Not begun — default for new tasks, and the spawn target for recurrence |
| Started | In progress |
| Completed | Done — counts toward progress, closes tickets, can spawn the next recurring task |
| Canceled | Out of scope — excluded from progress |
Do not invent a “sort of done” status in the unstarted category. Progress and invoices will treat it as not done.
Assignees, labels, priority, due date
Section titled “Assignees, labels, priority, due date”- Several people can be assigned. The first is the display face on cards. Replacing assignees is a full replace; only newly added people get the “you were assigned” notification. Named teams show up in the same menu: click a team to assign everyone who can take the task, click it again to take those people off.
- Assignees must be in the hive and on the project (managers bypass the project list).
- Labels come from the hive catalog (up to 24). Set them in Organization settings, not per project. The color circle on each label opens a picker with suggested hues (or type a hex). Removing a label asks for confirmation; tasks that used it become unlabeled.
- Priority is low / medium / high / urgent.
- Due date is a calendar day.
On Studio+, the drawer can call the other assignees (starts the project conference and rings them). Hidden when you are the only assignee. See Chat and calls.
Subtasks
Section titled “Subtasks”One level only. A subtask is a real task: its own assignees, status, due date, and time.
- Board, table, and map show top-level tasks, with a progress chip when there are subtasks.
- My Work shows the parent (with completed/total), even if you are only assigned a subtask. Open it to check items off — the subtask list starts expanded when the parent already has any. Each checklist item can have its own due date, independent of the parent. My Work sorts and tints the parent by the earliest of the parent date and your open subtask dates.
- Deleting a parent deletes its subtasks.
Recurrence
Section titled “Recurrence”On a normal task (not a ticket), set daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly.
When that task first reaches a completed status — Save, or a Kanban drop — InHive spawns exactly one successor: same title, people, label, feature, and recurrence; status reset to the first unstarted status; due date advanced; new number. Completing it again does not spawn another.
Tickets never recur. Completing a project does not spawn leftovers.
Dependencies
Section titled “Dependencies”Link tasks that block each other. Cycles are rejected. Those links are the edges on the mind map.
When a task is blocked by another, the drawer shows Continues from — the earlier task’s description, acceptance criteria, and files right there, so picking up the work never means hunting for the earlier card.
Batch edit
Section titled “Batch edit”On the table, My Work, and Schedule, select rows the way the OS does:
- Tick a row checkbox to select (adds without dropping the rest)
- Shift-click a checkbox or Shift+arrow for a range
- Space toggles the focused row
- Cmd/Ctrl+A selects all
- Enter opens the drawer
Clicking the rest of the row focuses it for those keys; it does not select.
While rows are selected, a batch bar floats over the bottom of the list. Filters stay put. It can set status, label, feature, due date, or assignees on everything you are allowed to edit. Rows you cannot edit are skipped, not a failed batch.
Due date can be a specific day, cleared, or shifted from each task’s own date (+1 / +2 / +3 days, a week, two weeks, a month, or a custom number).
Status across projects: if the selected rows do not share one catalog, you can set a category (started, completed, …) instead of a single status name. Each project then uses its first status in that category. Tap the i next to Status for that mapping.
Feature needs one project. If the selection spans projects, Feature stays on No change and is disabled; tap the i next to Feature to see why.
Managers can batch-delete.
Comments
Section titled “Comments”Comments on a task can be internal (hive only) or public (visible in client-facing threads, including support email). The thread shows the newest first; Load earlier comments brings in the rest. A comment that appears while the thread is open flashes honey and fades, so a teammate’s insert is hard to miss. Hover a comment (or select it with the keyboard) to see the time, visibility, and edit or delete actions. Board cards show a comment count when there is at least one. Enter starts a new line (and continues a list). ⌘/Ctrl+Enter posts. Chat still sends on Enter.
Paste or drop an image into a comment or a description, or use the paperclip on the format strip. Up to four images, 10MB each. Public ticket replies keep those images in the hive thread — the email the requester gets shows [image], not the file.
While you are writing a description or a comment, a format strip sits on the editor (bold, italic, lists, links). The idle comment box hides that strip until you click in. The stored form is ordinary markdown, so agents and email keep reading the same text.
Deadline risk
Section titled “Deadline risk”Cards can show watch / at risk / critical. That badge is rule-based — overdue, due soon but untouched, unassigned and due soon, stalled — not a model guess. It is free and the same every time you look.
Copy prompt
Section titled “Copy prompt”On a task, Copy prompt in the ⋮ menu copies a briefing for Cursor + InHive MCP. Enable it under Account → Profile (Team, write access). See Agents.
History of changes
Section titled “History of changes”Open History of changes at the bottom of the drawer. Each row names the person and what they did: status to a catalog name, the description, time logged, a comment, a file. Changes from an automation (or auto-compile) are credited to the hive’s AI name — the same name as the chat bot in Organization settings → AI.